Reels and Spindles: A Story of Mill Life

So when, not long after, the whole band of merrymakers came trooping over the knoll of Bareacre, they found not only their belated supper spread for them, but a sight to amuse their curiosity in the buried treasure, estimated at various sums by the excited beholders, and with an ever increasing value as the story passed from mouth to mouth.

"It will belong to 'Bony,' of course."

"No; to the Kayes. He doesn't own the house."

"Nor they. If they did, they wouldn't take it from him. They're not that sort of folks."

"But they're as poor as anybody now."

"Archibald Wingate owns the property. I should think it belonged to him."

"The 'Supe' will probably take it in charge."

So the talk bandied back and forth till poor Fayette's weak brain was in a whirl; and amid it all there was one name that fell upon his hearing with a sense of pain, – "Archibald Wingate." The man he hated. Well, of one thing he was resolved – this unearthed treasure might be the mill owner's, but if it were, he should never, never touch it.

Poor Fayette! So he still stood and proudly exhibited the wonder, and told over and again exactly how he had long suspected its existence, and had watched his opportunity, with this result. Since he was happy and watchful, Cleena felt he was secure – for the present. But all the time she longed for Mr. Frederic's return, or even for that of Mr. Kaye, who was abroad upon a sketching ramble. There should be somebody in authority present, since Hallam and Amy were both too young, and Teamster John – well, he might "do at a pinch." In any case, he must remain on guard till a better man appeared.

This better man did arrive, just as the evening fell, in the person of Uncle Fred, riding up the driveway in old Israel Boggs's farm wagon. Amy was first to discover their approach and ran gayly to meet them, beginning her tale of the afternoon's adventure with her very salutation; but long before she reached the side of the wagon she saw that something was amiss with her jolly uncle. His face was very grave, and even his voice was hushed, so that though his greeting to his niece was even kinder than usual, it startled her by its solemnity.

"Why, Uncle Fred, what is the matter? What has happened?"

"I'll tell you presently. But how come so many here? I thought the picnic was at 'Treasure Island.'"

She nodded cheerfully to Israel, whose face was even more sad than Frederic Kaye's, and gave a rapid history of events. Strangely enough, neither of the two newcomers appeared much interested. It was as if some greater matter absorbed them, and their manner subdued Amy to silence; while the farmer tied old Fanny, and then followed his friend into the front part of the house, quite away from the excited groups surrounding Fayette and his wonderful exhibit.

Once inside the shelter of the passage, Mr. Frederic laid his hand upon Amy's shoulder, and said, very gently: —

"Prepare for a great sorrow, Amy dear. I have just come from the death-bed of our good friend, Adam Burn."

Never till that moment had the girl known how well she loved the saintly old man. Rarely meeting, he had still exercised over her young life one of its most powerful influences, and an influence all for good.

"Oh, Uncle Fred, it can't be. It mustn't be. He was so good, so kind, so – "

"Altogether lovely. Yes, dear, all that. Old Israel, here, needs comfort. Talk to him a little."

So she led the heart-broken Israel into the farthest room, and sitting down beside him persuaded him to speak with her of the one that had passed on, and in the act to find relief. Then she slipped away a moment and found Hallam, who, when he had heard this later news, quietly dismissed the club and brought the happy holiday to a reverent close.

"Land! that makes all such ilk," said Teamster John, pointing to Fayette's glittering heap, "to seem of small account. What's a litter of gold alongside of such as him?"

And not one among them all who had ever known Adam Burn found anything now worth discussing save the goodness and simplicity of their dead neighbor and friend.

But late that night, after Israel had gone back to the desolate Clove, to make such arrangements for the old man's burial as his friends at "Charity House" had deemed fitting, Uncle Frederic remarked, casually: —

"By the way, Amy, Mrs. Burn ('Sarah Jane,' you know) told me a bit of news, to the effect that you are the old man's heiress, because of your name that was his wife's. She says he gave you a sealed letter before he left Ardsley, which letter explained everything, – where the will was to be found, and the few directions necessary for the settlement of the estate. Your father and I are trustees, she thinks, until you come of age, but you are the heir. Good night."

"No, no, uncle, I don't want to be! I want nothing that is gained by his death. And – I lost that letter, anyway."

"Lost it? That's serious. However, it can doubtless be arranged. Good night."

CHAPTER XXVIII.

ONE WONDERFUL AUTUMN DAY

The months flew by. The summer came and went. It was the hour for closing on a "Saturday-half," a whole year since Amy Kaye first visited the mills of Ardsley, and now she felt as they were a part of her very life. Beginning at the bottom she had industriously worked her way upward till she had just been promoted to the pleasant and well-paying task of "setter," in the big clean room, where the open windows admitted the soft air of another Indian summer.

Away, at the extreme end of the long apartment, was a sunshiny office, lately constructed for the personal use of Archibald Wingate. This office was partitioned from the setting room by a glass sliding door, and through this, as Amy now lifted her eyes, she could see the broad back of her relative bending above a desk full of correspondence.

At every setting frame there are two operators, for left hand and for right; and it was Amy's good fortune to have Mary Reese for her comrade, and a more sunshiny pair of workers could be found nowhere.

For Hallam, also, it had been a busy, happy year. Like Amy, having begun with the humblest task and smallest wage, he had now advanced to be bookkeeper in one department, while he still retained his work of coloring and preparing the patterns for use in the weaving of the famous Ardsley carpets. He looked a far stronger, healthier lad than of old, and his disposition to think upon the dark side of things had now no time to develop, for activity effectually prevents brooding.

Fayette was still a member of the Kaye household, and seemed to belong there as much as any of the others. He had been busy, too, all the year through, with his mushroom-raising, his gardening, and now that the autumn had come round again, with odd jobs at the mill. His deftness would always procure him employment of some sort, yet only that morning Mr. Metcalf had remarked to Hallam, confidentially: —

"Queer, but I can never trust 'Bony.' He seems as honest and reliable as possible for a time, and then, suddenly, he will do something to disappoint me. I don't like his demeanor toward the 'boss.' Ever since Mr. Wingate returned, late this summer, and took to coming here every day, 'Bony' has come too. Have you noticed?"

"I know he comes. I hadn't connected the two comings, however. I guess he's all right. There's a splendid side to that poor lad's nature, if you but knew it. Some day, I hope before very long now, he and I are to surprise the world."

"Why, Hal, you're as gay as a blackbird. What's the surprise, eh? Too precious to disclose even to me?"

"At present, yes. In a little while, a few days – Heigho!" and the lad looked significantly toward his crutches, leaning against the desk where he wrote.

But the superintendent did not observe the glance. His mind was full of misgiving. Within a day or two he had had occasion to suspect that the half-wit had some uncanny scheme on hand. The lad's dislike of the old mill owner appeared to grow with the passage of time. The dull brain never forgot an injury, and it always seemed to Fayette that Mr. Wingate had wronged him. From the old days of his "bound out" life on the farm, when whippings and punishments were of almost daily occurrence, to the present, there had been no diminution in the mill boy's resentment. Now there was this later injury, or injustice, as he believed, about the money found in the cellar of "Charity House."

The facts were these: the glittering coins had, when estimated, been of about one thousand dollars' value. To Fayette this seemed an enormous sum; to Mr. Wingate, a trifle. In the chest with the treasure had been also a time-yellowed letter, or memorandum, signed by the wife of Jacob Ingraham, and decreeing that the property thus hidden had been placed by her own hands in the wall of the cellar of "Spite House" for the "benefit of my nearest of kin."

The document, in itself, was as curious as its hiding-place, and proved that the ancient dame had been a keen observer of men's failings, if not their virtues.

"For I have seen, in this, my lifetime, that gold profits a man nothing. It is ever a bone of contention, and he who has it is poorer than he who has it not. I hope this chest will do him good who finds it; and if it is never found, then the earth will be so much the richer by this small portion of the wealth it has lost. In any case, to prevent evil, and, if possible, to secure a blessing, I have said one prayer over each coin herein disposed, and so, in duty to my conscience, I lock the box and throw the key down the old well of this Bareacre knoll."

The letter had further added that nobody, not even Jacob Ingraham, had known of this bestowal of the chest, because had anybody, "most of all, he," so known, it would have been excavated and its contents scattered.

Now Archibald Wingate was, on his mother's side, the last direct descendant of Mrs. Ingraham, and the property was clearly his. To him, as soon as he returned from his prolonged stay out of town, the broken chest and intact contents had been given by the superintendent, who, Mr. Kaye promptly decided, would be the proper guardian of the treasure until his employer returned.

There had been a terrible scene with Fayette when Cleena told him this decision, and for several days thereafter the lad had not been visible. Some thought he had gone off in one of his wanderings through the woods and fields; but the truth was, he had been kept under lock and key by the energetic and masterful Cleena Keegan. She had assured that patient listener, herself, that: —

"Sure, it do be right. Will I lose all the good we have gained for the sake o' bad temper? The end's in sight, – the blessed end o' the secrecy, an' the weary struggle o' keepin' me gineral's nose to the grindstone, and now to leave go? Not while Cleena Keegan draws a free breath, an' can handle a silly gossoon, like him yon."

From the first it had been a strange and powerful influence that this good woman exercised over the foundling she adopted, and fortunately his imprisonment was not so very long, else it would have been impossible to conceal it from the rest of the household; not one of whom did, however, suspect such a proceeding.

When the object for which she had restrained him of his liberty seemed quite gained, Cleena let Fayette go; and, oddly enough, after his liberty was granted him, he no longer cared for it. He kept close to Bareacres, bare no longer, but teeming with the rich vegetation resulting from his own labor, guided by Frederic Kaye's trained judgment. The summer had proved a most interesting as well as busy one to both these gardeners. The results of their mutual labor were harvested and stored for the family's winter use, and Fayette had returned to the mill. Idleness, or the want of that regular employment he had enjoyed, now reawoke the dark thoughts which had disturbed his clouded brain during the time of his "retreat" under Cleena's compelling will.

This day, when Amy watched her cousin through the glass partition, and waited with Mary for Hallam to complete his own task in a room adjoining the private office of Mr. Wingate, Fayette was hanging about the mill, as if himself waiting for some one.

Amy called to him once, and received a surly answer: —

"I'll go when I get ready. I ain't hurting nobody – yet."

"Of course not, who'd suppose so? I'd think you'd like a run in the woods after hours. There was a frost a few nights ago. There may be hickory nuts to gather."